Between Selves
15 - 18 Apr, 2026
7pm - 8:15pm
With a post-performance talk on 17 – 18 Apr
Laundry Steps
HK$280
Remarks
- Duration: approximately 1 hour 15 minutes including a 15-minute interval
- Recommended for ages 6 and above
- Some part of the programme is in English and Cantonese without surtitles
- Latecomers will only be admitted until a suitable break arranged by venue staff
- Programmes are subject to change without prior notice. Tai Kwun reserves the right to make the final decision regarding the arrangements.
Limbo: The Waiting Room
Concept & Performance: Cola Ho Lok Yee
It has truly been a pleasure to create this piece. Living abroad has given me the privilege of experiencing life as both an outsider and an immigrant, while allowing me to grow into a dance artist on my own terms. At times, I feel the need to constantly prove my worth in order to be seen or given opportunities, but this journey has shaped me in meaningful ways and led me to work with people and in places that truly recognize my value.
It has opened my eyes to parts of the world I might never have encountered otherwise, expanding both my perspective and my artistry.
I hope this work speaks to the different aspects of stereotyping in our societies. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with such inspiring artists to bring this vision to life, and to share this work and these connections with the Hong Kong community.
Double Being
Concept, Choreography & Performance: Liu Qingyu
I was born in Chongqing at the end of the 1980s and have been learning dance since childhood, falling in love with pop music back in the era of CDs and cassettes. Creating "Double Being" has been a process of constantly questioning myself and gaining new insights for me. Dual existence, identity and memory, reality and virtuality, a moon in the mirror or flowers in water... I respond to this rapidly evolving era through my creation.
What exactly lies behind the illusions? Is it another kind of reality? After rational and philosophical contemplation of these questions about life's phenomena, I still find that what matters most is the "courage" to keep living, as well as learning to love oneself, regrow, and extend the "self."
Limbo: The Waiting Room – Observations and Reflections
Since moving to Europe in 2018, Cola Ho Lok Yee has spent considerable time in waiting rooms: waiting for auditions, waiting for medical appointments, and waiting for administrative paperwork to complete. She recalls a harrowing incident: while studying in Portugal and preparing to look for work in Germany, she was stopped in transit by police officers who were suspicious of her temporary Portuguese residence permit. Brought to the police station where “her fingerprints and mug shot were taken”, Ho was held in detention until two or three in the morning before being released. The police gave her a seven-day German stay permit and even said, “Have a good trip” as if nothing had happened.
On another occasion, she was waiting for paperwork to be processed at an immigration office. Not knowing when her turn would come, her gaze and thoughts drifted to the people around her: “Why is he faster than me? Who is he?” She realised that she, too, projected stereotypes and even prejudices on others. “Everyone in a waiting room is impatient, but why do I get impatient with people in my exact same situation?” She used to believe in creating her own destiny, “but once you enter a waiting room, many things are beyond your control. There is a sense of helplessness in not knowing what will happen next.”
These experiences in waiting rooms became Ho’s creative inspiration for Limbo: The Waiting Room. As an artist, she is most interested in people’s emotions and states in different circumstances. “In a waiting room, everyone is sizing each other up. This subtle dynamic is fascinating.” The stage is designed to resemble a waiting room overgrown with moss, making it impossible to tell the time and setting. Three independent characters coexist in the space, not knowing why or how long they have been waiting. They are almost like neighbours. The performance mainly features solo dances, though the characters do encounter each other. “I focus on their individual stories and how they interact.”
After many years abroad, Ho is eager to bring to Hong Kong performance approaches and creative methods she learned in Europe. She also hopes to express her perspectives with honesty and precision without being didactic. “Each character is an independent individual, with both good and bad within.”
Double Being – Another Me in the World
As a child, Liu Qingyu loved the Japanese anime NANA which featured two female characters sharing the same name. This, coupled with the fact that Liu’s maternal grandmother is a twin, led Liu to develop the imagination of “another me in the world”. In 2024 as part of the Tai Kwun “Performance Co-Lab: Rehearsing Symbiosis” programme, she presented Another Me in the World, the precursor to Double Being, exploring the relationship between real-life identity, the body and virtual space, using imagery to create fascinating visuals of “another me”.
As the title suggests, Double Being refers to a form of dual existence: “the same being having two selves in two different spaces.” This doubling brings novel sensory experiences to the body. As the body sways, reflections appear and the personal identity constantly flows, splits and reassembles within the virtual space. Dramaturg Michael Li adds that the boundary between real and virtual identities is actually fuzzy. Social media, for instance, is an extension of real life, blurring the line between what is real and make-believe. “What we are exploring in this work is precisely this ambiguity of identity.”
The performance takes place at the Laundry Steps. Liu has rarely performed at open or semi-open venues before, and she even felt it resembled a cathedral on her first visit, “with a sense of upward gaze and grandeur”. Her visual imagery occasionally takes on the form of a divine figure, echoing the architecture. The performance approach is challenging as it incorporates live streaming, unlike performances on stage, with the camera capturing vast details from both near and far. “I feel like a film actor and a dancer at different points in the performance!”
Double Being is very much a live performance, not unlike a livestream. Of course, Liu is not speaking or selling merchandise as a streamer would. Instead, she expresses herself through her body. “Visually, a host of peculiar images emerge. The audience sees what appears to be a person being born—who is she? She changes yet again? The narrative is constantly shifting.” These projections, while captured from her live performance, bear certain differences. “We are playing with what is real and what is not—this state of ambiguity.” Behind the imagery, however, lies hidden emotions. “All the projections and imagery ultimately mirror the inner feelings.”
Double Being
Concept, Choreography & Performance:
- Liu Qingyu
Artistic Collaboration & Visual Dramaturgy:
- Chen Ran
Sound & Media Design:
- Larry Shuen
Dramaturgy:
- Michael Li
Limbo: The Waiting Room
Concept & Performance:
- Cola Ho Lok Yee
Co-creation, Script & Performance:
- Jos Baker
Co-creation & Performance:
- Joshua Jasper Narvaez
Dramaturgical Consultancy:
- Jos Baker
- Margherita Scalise
Sound Design:
- Suen Siu Man Miles
Lighting Design:
- Le Dinh Dat
Costume Design:
- Trista Ma
Producer:
- Michael Li
Production Manager:
- Zandra Kong
Assistant Producer:
- Yan Cheng
Cola Ho Lok Yee
Choreographer & Dancer of Limbo: The Waiting Room
Cola Ho Lok Yee, born in Hong Kong, graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts with a major in Contemporary Dance, initially training in Jazz, Chinese Dance, and Latin Ballroom. She later joined the Performact Program in Portugal on a scholarship, training with artists like Mate Meszaros, Inãki Azpillaga, and Jose Agudo, and began teaching in her second year. During this time, she performed with Quorum Ballet in Rite of Spring – Made in China and Saudade, which toured Portugal, Denmark, and Spain.
In 2019, Cola appeared in The Red Queen by Luke Jessop at Belgium’s Half Oogst Festival and Timber by Roberto Olivan with Companhia Instável. Her works include Mrs. Murphy (2017, 2018) and Emma’s Jaw (2019), which won the Publikum Prize from Hieristjetzt and premiered at Munich’s Joint Adventure.
From 2020 to 2023, she danced with Theater Bielefeld and is now freelancing with artists like Stephanie Thiersch (Mouvoir) and Wim Vandekeybus (Ultima Vez). Cola’s work uses physicality to explore sincerity and diverse emotional states in performance.
Liu Qingyu
Choreographer & Dancer of Double Being
Independent dancer & choreographer, Qingyu received a MFA in Choreography of Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Currently based in Guangzhou.
She worked as a full-time dancer with Guangdong Modern Dance Company (2009-2017) and as a dancer, choreographer and teacher with Er Gao Dance Production Group (2021-2023).
In 2023, she participated in and completed Singapore [CP]3 (Certificate Programme for Critical Practice in Contemporary Performance).
In October 2024, she took part as an artist in the experimental performance platform Performance Co-Lab: Rehearsing Symbiosis, organized by Tai Kwun in Hong Kong.
Her recent choreographic works are rooted in personal biography and cultural memory. Through interdisciplinary practices that blend contemporary dance with visual arts, she reconceptualize embodiments of identity through corporeal experimentation and imagined possibilities.
Her creation This is a Process 2022-2023 (supported by the “Fellowships for Contemporary Dance Creation and Research” of Hong Kong City Contemporary Dance Company, performed at Hong Kong City Contemporary Dance Festival, the 19th Guangdong Dance Festival, Mid-Mountain Dancer Art Week, the Macau CDE Springboard) and Dream Factory 2024 (supported by the 1st “Up to Date Creative Project” of Guangdong Dance Festival).
Chen Ran
Artistic Collaboration & Visual Dramaturgy of Double Being
CHEN Ran (she/they) is a theatre director, artist, and cultural practitioner based between Utrecht and Beijing. Trained at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing and the University of the Arts Utrecht, her practice moves in-between bodies and screens, reality and simulation, with sustained interests in mediated life, feminist and alternative forms of care, as well as collective processes. Her works have been presented at ACT Shanghai Contemporary Theatre Festival, Beijing International Fringe Festival, the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts (Melbourne), Yokohama International Performing Arts Meeting, Times Museum (Guangzhou), A4 Art Museum (Chengdu), the Academy for Theatre and Digitality (Dortmund), and BAK Basecamp (Utrecht), among others. Since 2021, she has been a long-term artistic collaborator for LIU Qingyu, working on LIU’s first two solo works: This is a Process and Dream Factory.
Larry Shuen
Sound & Media Design of Double Being
Larry SHUEN is a Hong Kong composer, sound artist, and media artist whose practice draws deep inspiration from classical music and his extensive training in musical composition. His works often originate from a profound engagement with music, sounds, and the act of listening, through which Shuen articulates his reflective thoughts on life and his surroundings.
Shuen's recent works include It's not in the music, but it's in the music, or not., a lecture performance that addresses performability in music, and Gesture Studies, an exhibition exploring musicians' gestures through performance, installation, and moving image works, including rotoscope animations and music-gesture scores.
Shuen is also active in theatre production as a sound and media designer, as well as in arts initiatives and university teaching as a teaching artist.
Michael Li
Producer of Between Selves and Dramaturgy of Double Being
LI Hon Ting (Michael) is the founder of Tin Project, an independent art space, as well as an independent producer and dramaturge.
Li founded Tin Project in 2020, focusing on the production and curation of contemporary dance and theatre. The space actively curates various forms of research and development platforms, including artist residencies, staged presentations, exchanges, and co-productions, seeking avenues for artistic development beyond mainstream production frameworks.
Since 2022, Li has served as dramaturge for multiple research-based artistic projects, including Albert GARCIA (Macau/Philippines) with The Survival Guide: Between a dog, a wolf and a tardigrade and The Bug is On Fire; CHU Chin Ching's My Body is a Battlefield and These are My Armours; CHEUNG Wai Yin's Evolving Grip: Pole Dance & Zebra Mussel; and Holmes CHEUNG’s In Somebody’s Shoes.
Li currently serves as a board member of Unlock Dancing Plaza, assessor of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and committee member of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department's Programme and Development Committee (Dance and Multi-Arts).
Jos Baker
Co-creation, Script, Dramaturgical Consultancy & Performance of Limbo: The Waiting Room
Jos Baker is a choreographer, performer, theatre maker and teacher.
He started his dance training at the age of 7 with Oxford Youth Dance and then continued his formal education first at The Laban Center London and then at PARTS in Brussels.
Jos worked for Peeping Tom as a dancer, actor and collaborator, principally with the productions 32 Rue Vandenbranden (2009), and A Louer (2011).
Since then he worked briefly for DV8 Physical Theatre on the production of
John (2014).
Jos’ creative work includes writing and co-creating Strangers in the Night (2024) with Linus Jansner and Carlo Massari, Ceci n’est pas un fin (2024) Jacky Chan (2023)Put Out the Flame (2019-20) and The Smallest Little Thing (2019) commissioned by The Hong Kong Arts Festival. His solo work includes Know it all (2019), Of no fixed abode (2017) Creature Man Don’Tell Me (2008). We were youth (2016), Afla (2008), Feedback (2009), We were youth (2016). Jos also directed and performed in Paris Fashion Week to promote Petit Bateau’s Cedric Charlier collection (2014).
On film Jos made several music videos and short films; as a dancer and choreographic assistant to Damien Jalet for Anima (2019), a Thom Yorke project directed by Paul Thomas Andersson. He has also directed the short films The Hole (2021), Shift (2021) and Put Out the Flame (2021). Other screen work includes; Forgot to live (2013) by Ay Wing, and Let it Roll (2016) by Mustard Gas and Roses directed by Koen Mortier, and Biegga savkala duoddariid duohken lea soames (2006) by Elle Sofe Henrikseni, and movement direction for Violet Hour (2020) by St Claire and directed by Tamsin Topolski. In addition to several commercials as both performer and movement director.
He also teaches a wide range of classes and workshops across the globe for professional dancers and dance students.
Joshua Jasper Narvaez
Co-creation & Performance of Limbo: The Waiting Room
Joshua Jasper Narvaez is a Filipino dance artist. He began his training at the Philippine High School for the Arts as a folk dancer and later at the Ballet Philippines Dance School, before obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts with First Class Honours from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, majoring in contemporary dance.
As a performer, Jasper joined Akram Khan Company in 2019 and has since performed and toured internationally in Outwitting the Devil, Chotto Xenos, KAASH Revisited, Jungle Book Reimagined and Chotto Desh. He has also worked as a performer with Ekleido, AURA Dance Theatre and Jukstapoz Company.
Beyond performing, he has worked as a teacher, R&D artist, rehearsal director and choreographer with organisations including Rambert, GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, Henny Jurriëns Studio, CLOD Ensemble, IT Dansa, Alleyne Dance, English National Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet School and Ballet Philippines, among others.
He is interested in storytelling through movement, bringing together physical precision and narrative to create work that resonates across cultures and contexts.
Suen Siu Man Miles
Sound Design
Suen Siu Man (Miles/Smile) is a sound professional and a graduate of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts with a Bachelor of Arts in Sound Design. He has a diverse background in creating audio experiences for theatre, live music, and immersive environments.
Miles has extensive experience as a Sound Designer and Operator for The Radiant Theatre, where he assists Jaycee and created original sound content and managed live audio for productions such as Finding Wonderland, Beautiful Sounds, and Magic Ichiban. His technical expertise also extends to immersive projects, having worked as a technician for the Netflix Stranger Things Experience in London.
In the live music scene, he has served as a FOH Mixing Engineer for artists including Anthony Wong and Jason Chan, and as a Live Recording Engineer for Hins Cheung at the Royal Albert Hall. Currently based in London, Miles also supports productions at the Royal Opera House and the South Bank Centre.
Le Dinh Dat
Lighting Design
Le graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA), majoring in Lighting Design. He was awarded the Robe Lighting Scholarship and Pacific Lighting Encouragement Prize during his studies.
He has designed for various theatre productions and installations, including Unlock Dancing Plaza A Long Walk: Again(work-in-progress), Infinite Extension, Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio PTI 2024/25 Showcase: Flowing, Giselle Li To Sleep So As To Dream, Passoverdance Soil II: Present, Tai Kwun Circus Plays Circus Reels – Throw to Glow (2025), New Boom in Circus: Planet B (2024), Peter Wong Tsz Kin’s soundscape installation Echoes and Imagery, WestK x On & On Theatre Workshop With Love, Medea’s Boys, HKAPA School of Dance Summer Performances The Magnificent Orange Tree, HKAPA Academy Drama Le Malade Imaginaire, Ray Cheung’s choreography Behind, HKAPA Choreography Workshop II Flux and Another Dimension.
He also creates artworks as a light artist with INscape, I am being EXHIBITED, Reflect, and Bloom.
His design for The Magnificent Orange Tree was nominated for the 25th Hong Kong Dance Awards in Outstanding Lighting Design.
Trista Ma
Costume Design
Art director, costume designer, image director, actress, and florist.
Ma won the "Best Creativity Award" of the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival–Local Competition (Student Group) for her directing and screenwriting work Fish Out Of Water. She won the "Best Photography Award" of the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival–Local Competition (Open Group) for her directing work Nothing's Gonna Change My World. Her works have been screened in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, and Israel.
Ma is also the image designer and art director for various performing arts and visual arts projects. Since 2014, she has collaborated with many local art groups and institutions, including On and on Theatre, Unlock Dancing Plaza, Reframe Theatre, Orleanlai Project, No Discipline Limited, Tai Kwun, and New Vision Arts Festival. Her works have won numerous awards, including the "Best Stage Aesthetic Design" of the Hong Kong Theatre Libre for Prometheus Bound (On and on Theatre) in 2022. Since 2019, Ma has collaborated with the French theatre company L'ARGILE on various theatre projects, and has exhibited at Montmaur Castle (French Alps), Eaton Hotel Hong Kong, and Aix-Marseille University.
As a performer, Ma appeared in Tai Kwun's 2021 exhibition Trust and Confusion, Norwegian choreographer Mette Edvardsen's work Time Fell Asleep in the Afternoon Sun (2022–2023), and served as florist for Hermès' Le Monde d'hermès (2022–2023).
Zandra Kong
Production Manager
Zandra Kong graduated from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, majoring in Technical Production and Management.
Recent works included: Hong Kong New Music Ensemble Numeral Humanity & A Private Language Machine, TWGHs i-dArt A throwback to unforgettable performance, Stella Bright &Co., Ltd Sea Fog, Unlock Dancing Plaza A Long Walk: Again” (Work In Progress), HKAPA School of Chinese Opera Gongs and Drums, SPOTLIGHT: A Season of Performing Arts 2025 Infinite Extension, Woo Yat Hei Burn Out Nijinsky, HKAPA EXCEL Applied Learning Course showcase The Essentials of Theatre Arts (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025) & Taking A Chance on Dance (2023, 2024 ,2025), Freespace Dance 2024 FIRST Creation Platform REfract (Zelia ZZ Tan), Tai Kwun The Hearth: Awake Awhile, HKPAX One, My Utopia & Evolution
Yan Cheng
Assistant Producer
Cheng Nga Yan, a Hong Kong media artist and performer, studied BEng Information Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and MFA Creative Media (distinction) at City University of Hong Kong. She focuses on interaction and audience experience in performing arts, drawing inspiration from interesting observations of her surroundings. Her works includes performances, interactive installations and video arts. Besides, she also participated in different roles as a performer, media designer, website designer and project coordinator.
In 2020, she together with her fellows, established an independent art space, ngau4 gat1 dei6, which is an art project exploring how to operate and sustain such art space in local art scene and sharing spatial resources with fellow artists.